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| The Wedding Cake Hans Christian Castle in Czech Republic |
A
bit about the book; a recipe, how the table is laid.
Travels
in Time; a lyrical look at the world less travelled; going by at a
pace less visited. A pedaling pace; a peace seldom found. A journey
both literal and metaphorical. The actual by bike from Wales to Czech
Republic and back; the metaphysical through the author’s memory and
imagination. Journey through hypnotic peace along canals and down the
Great Rivers during a wonderful hot summer to the World Capital of
Surreal. Pass by scary storms and camels and three German Anias to
blondes gone by and a fairytale wedding in a wedding cake castle.
Stories of cars being chased by bike, the Rainbow Warrior’s
skipper, how sex, drugs and Rock and Roll just isn’t on the menu in
a tiny French village. Enjoy listening to the world’s most
opinionated author give out about bicycling as Buddhism, the
industrial revolution, the decline and fall of the cinema and
everything inbetween.
A
bit from the book; a taster, a bite.
Cycling
is cyclical; prayer for body and soul. Smoothly spinning pedals and
wheels sing out the Songlines. Like some high mountain Himalayan
llama spinning prayer wheels or a buck naked aboriginal treading his
sacred land. Listen; can you hear them.
The mountains running
Holy West to East, from the thundering ocean to the mighty Severn;
the Preselis, Carningli to Frenni Fawr, on over the Beacons, Black
Mountain to sweet Sugar Loaf. Summer soft streams to cross, Cothi,
Dulais, Senni, Honddu, Usk and Wye. I know every wheel rut and way;
every copse and hedge; every twist and turn, uphill and down dale. I
can tell them off, sing their songs, a bicycling bard; my Bible, my
Book of Psalms.
Barreling down a tree
tunneled lane, Chris can tell me the last time he passed this way;
Patries was still recording the milk yields round the farms, he’ll
recall a particular detail, a cow sick, a daughter winning a prize,
the season and month. Its sacred and cyclical, it winds us around the
spindle of our lives and melds and merges it with the landscape we
live in.
Hippy bollocks, I can
hear you mutter; but try it, I’ve been at it for forty years and I
love it. Cycling
is a rite, a series of rituals. It’s a bloody right too, and don’t
let any four wheel based bastard tell you any different…….
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